The new Godzilla film is directed by Gareth Edwards and stars Aaron-Taylor Johnson,Bryan Cranston and Elizabeth Olsen. Back in 1954 the Japanese monster movie Godzilla took the world by storm and Edwards, who made the critically acclaimed Monsters, hopes to reboot the franchise. This might be a step in the wrong direction.

Here are the biggest problems with the Godzilla 2014 trailer.

1. No plot

We know the original plot of Godzilla. A nuclear catastrophe
creates a monstrous creature that attacks Tokyo. What's the plot of
this film? Is it the same plot? Is it different? Are there mutated
flatworms? No idea.

2. The Halo Jump

It starts with exciting skydives that go nowhere. What is
the point of it?

David Strathairn stands in front of the soldiers and says, "Gentlemen, you are being sent in by a HALO jump. Now
I realize not all of you have had hands on experience and frankly, none
of us have ever faced a situation quite like this before. But I would
not be asking any one of you to take this leap...if I did not have
complete faith in your ability to succeed. Your courage will never be
more needed than it is today"

We get a dramatic monologue. A tense jump. The feeling
of falling for almost a minute and then it ends. That's it. It sets itself
up as a dramatic opening tease and ends
with nothing but a vague image of Godzilla. I'm sure it'll look great
in 3-D, but it's just boring right now.

3. We See Godzilla

It shows Godzilla. Not a clear shot of course, but we get a good look at his silhouette. The biggest draw is the
question, "what is Godzilla going to look like?" We get a really good
look at him, and it's anti-climactic.

He looks like 1998 Godzilla. Why in the world does he look like
the lizard Godzilla from the last reboot? We don't want a "different"
Godzilla. We want the Godzilla we grew up with. Sure he looks cheesy,
but that's what we love about him. Make him look like a guy in a suit. Even the insanely cool monsters in Pacific Rimlooked like guys in suits.

Here are some screenshots showing exactly what he looks like in the teaser.

4. It's Not As Good as the 1998 Teaser Trailer

Speaking of the ridiculous Godzilla 1998 movie, the teaser trailer for
that one is ten times better than this one. It starts with an innocuous
shot of an old guy fishing and ends with a dramatic view of Godzilla
destroying the dock and his monstrous eye. Watch it below.

I'm assuming this movie will be better than that one, but at least Roland Emmerich knows how to tease an audience.

5. We've Had Plenty of 9/11 Movies

Gareth Edwards is doing, yet another, intentional nod to September 11th in Godzilla. "To me, he's like a force of nature, like the wrath of God or
vengeance for the way we've behaved," Edwards told USA Today. "If this really
happened, it would be like Sept. 11. I want it to be epic. I want to get the hairs on the back of your neck up."

Since 2001, we've had dozens of movies making analogies of the terrorist
attacks of 9/11. We don't need another one. I'm not trying to minimize
the event, but it's like every movie using the Nazi Holocaust. It just
gets old.

6. Nothing Gets Destroyed

The best thing about Godzilla movies, and the 1998 Godzilla movie, is
the sight of Godzilla destroying things. Now, there's plenty of
destruction in the trailer, but we don't see him stomping on
anything. It's kind of a let-down. The official synopsis for Godzilla 2014 is "An epic rebirth to Toho’s iconic Godzilla, this spectacular adventure
pits the world’s most famous monster against malevolent creatures who,
bolstered by humanity’s scientific arrogance, threaten our very
existence." Edwards has said that the movie will feature a bunch of giant monsters, so why not start with that?

37
comments:

Pat Dilloway
said...

I agree it's underwhelming. I'm sure they'll have a better trailer as it gets closer to release. People complain but part of the reason they probably do teaser trailers like this is the CGI stuff might not be finished yet, whereas the live action stuff like the HALO jump is probably done. I hope the finished product doesn't look exactly like the 1998 one because that one sucked.

I Hate the 1998 movie. It might have a good trailer, but the finished product is less than desirable. I only enjoyed 2 things from the 1998 movie. #1. The soundtrack, but I loved Jamiroquai & #2. The marketing with Taco Bell. Here lizard, lizard, lizard...The underwhelming part is not seeing the "Monster", but most great monster movies won't reveal its beast till the right moment in the movie. I can see the 9/11 implications, but I like seeing a human element in it so the audience will feel a connection. Plus the cast is pretty impressive. Do we need a plot in the trailer? It's a giant lizard fighting other monsters, who will be the baddies. I'm sure that the toys will start showing us more closer to the movie, just like Pacific Rim did. I have confidence that Edwards will do a great job, just like he did in his film Monsters. He might not be Guillermo del Toro, but he is a rising star director.

1. It's a teaser; I wouldn't expect the plot to be given away quite yet. But the full trailer will, I'm sure. I prefer trailers that don't tell me a lot about the movie. The Matrix trailer was perfect. I had no idea what to expect, but I knew I had to see that movie!2. Agreed, waaaay too long and went no where (but down).3. I think a lot of people were disappointed with the changes make to '98 Godzilla so this was probably a way to say "See? It's the Godzilla you know and love!"4. Yeah, I agree with you there too. It was more of a "tease" than this one is.5. I didn't even consider the correlation with 9/11, and that probably goes to prove your point; we've gotten desensitized.6. I didn't mind or notice that nothing got destroyed on screen since we saw so much already destroyed. I'm a bit tired of destruction after Man of Steel so this didn't bother me.

All in all, I wouldn't say I'm "pumped" to see Godzilla, but this teaser does have me more interested than I was before. Besides, it's got Scarlet Witch and Walter White!

It's just the first one and they gave us what we wanted - a shot of Godzilla so we could confirm it didn't look like the iguana-thing from 1998.At at least we know he's not destroying New York again.I thought it was a really cool trailer. Watched it three times yesterday on JoBlo's site.

What are you dense? Keep your asinine opinions to yourself. If you like shit like GINO aka Zilla '98 and Michael Bay-esque trailers... good for you but the rest of us cinephiles do not! What ever happened to trailers having some mystery left in them?

Also, have you seen the new Godzilla design leaks? They look nothing like that chicken-iguana abomination!

1. Its a teaser. It isn't going to give you a plot. How often do teaser trailers do that? The pre-9/11 Spiderman trailer didn't give you plot. The MAN OF STEEL teaser didn't give plot. TDKR teaser didn't give plot, just let you know that a big muscle man was about to punish Batman Randy Savage-style. 2. Godzilla doesn't look like the 1998 bastardization. It looks like a haunched over version of the Godzilla suit from 2002's Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla3. The Halo jump sequence shows a full city destroyed4. 9/11 is just a frame of reference as to how to plan out the atmosphere of the film and what destruction of major infrastructure looks like. People said the same thing about MAN OF STEEL. Just because a couple of buildings are destroyed, it doesn't mean it has anything to do with 9/11 allegorically or symbolicly.

The trailer is there to just show off Godzilla and whose going to be in the movie. That is all it is supposed to do and all it needs to do.

LOL Frank, you're right that the "teaser" shouldn't do much more than tease, but it's nothing but a bunch of people running around. I was looking for something that sets it apart from every other disaster movie.

1) Agreed about the Matrix trailer. The mystery works in movies like that and "Dark City." A shot from the ending would be a bit much.2) Down down down3) It doesn't look exactly like the 1998 version, but I just miss the neck. I'm a purist.4) Now there you go. After watching a trailer for a terrible film you go "Wow! I want to see more!" I just felt like I'd eaten finger food when I wanted some chicken wings.5) It's not TOO obvious, but I added a link to the directors comment about it. There are a lot of shots of people running away.6) Good point about that. That is very "teaser-like."

I'm totally stoked to see Walter White as a scientist. Maybe he'll cook up some Godzilla meth to take him down. :)

Evan you make some good points.1) The Man of Steel trailer proves my point though. What do we associate with Superman? Flying. We got that in the very very first teaser. BTW Now I'll never be able to watch TDKR without hearing Randy Savage's "Oh yeeeeah!"2) Ok. you got me there since I never watched that one. (Fail) In that sense he looks exactly like the 2002 version. I won't argue that it's not the "real" Godzilla since it was made by Toho and they would know.3) It only shows the city destroyed from way way way up. I didn't find it that exciting.4) Edwards said he wants to compare it to 9/11. Is there no other disaster to compare it to? What did they compare the original Godzilla too? I just think it's too easy. It's like comparing someone to Hitler. It evokes an immediate reaction emotionally. Unless he compares him to "Mr. Hilter" and then I just laugh.

Well it achieved that. I just hope the next one goes a little bit farther. Thanks for joining in.

I could argue that the point of a blog is to express opinions, but I won't bother.

I never said I like Michael Bay trailers better than others. The guy actually starts shooting his movies specifically to get shots for the trailer. That seems silly.

I love mysteries in my trailer. But you can't have it both ways. First tell us nothing then have a huge honking shot of Godzilla with a little fog to throw you off. If they had given away everything and THEN shown Godzilla fine. If they had hidden everything AND hid Godzilla I would have liked it more. But they didn't. As I said in the post I wish they'd kept the big guy a secret. I have seen the leaked design and the Comic-Con poster. Evan is right. It's based on the "Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla" 2002 movie. So there you go. He looks less like the chicken-iguana abomination, but less like the original in my book.

I love your cinephile passion Dude. There's not enough of that around these days.

Nathan, I'm glad you found our site either way. If you stick around you'll find I'm usually the first one to defend the genre, but I know I'm not the only one unhappy with the teaser after months of build-up. Maybe the next teaser will ignite the same fervor I usually have for Godzilla.

I didn't understand that either Mary. Did they think they'd scare him away with the flares? In context it might make sense, but seven guys skydiving onto Godzilla's back doesn't have much military intelligence to me. More monsters! More Monsters!

I HATE the 1998 movie David. I'll go on record with that. It was the last movie I ever did as a midnight showing since I was so disappointed. Taco Bell = funny. Actually I wish we'd seen less of Godzilla and not more. Finally, Edwards is a rising star Man, but I just hope he doesn't end up like M. Night Shyamalan.

Yeah Pat you make a good point about the production scheduling. What killed the buzz for the Ang Lee movie was the horrid CGI of the Hulk in the trailers. So maybe the fog is there to hide the monster CGI.

1 well is a teaser trailer not the fucking movie2 the halo jump view takes u into the eyes of one of the character and how he seen the disaster in the city bellow .3 we want that and we get that, this is not cloverfield people is GODZILLA4 bitch please this trailer are better than the 1998 full movie5 Please 9/11 people where not all babies wend Godzilla was destroying Japan in the movie 6 Again they are teasers TEASERS TRAILERS

Touché, this is your blog. I apologize for my rude behavior then. You unfairly felt the wraith from me seeing so much Godzilla and cinema ignorance as of lately. Too many trolls and "YOLO's" out there...

Just know, I haven't seen a teaser like this IN years. At least, consider that it's different for once. Also, we already got our stupid-fun Pacific Rim, it's time to get our EPIC and dramatic Gojira now.

Maurice, honestly I felt that they made everything so obscured in the "teaser" that if "intrigued" people really wanted some questions answered... they would actually take the time to look in to it.This movie seems "intelligent", the director and writers know what they're doing. They're making people search for this most likely for some plot details. "Who and What is M.U.T.O.?"

Actually, the new design makes me think this is what a baby born of the G-2000 and Earl Sinclair from Dinosaurs would look like. Put a red and black flannel shirt on that bad boy and see if I'm not right.

The person who wrote this rant is a complete imbecile. Truly. His parents should be ashamed they ever let him use the family Dell after dinner long enough to post this garbage. Folks, next time put the kid to bed early

I have to agree. The trailer left me very underwhelmed. And did anybody else clock the "98 hole in the building" homage? We see Godzilla briefly, and hear the roar, and I have to say, it was a no sell for me. I already know that this film will be Godzilla in name, looks and sound, but he will have no character, and all of the Japanese quirks that made the franchise, will either be omitted, or repacked and sold to a western audience. This will be another G.I.N.O. Of course, all the CGI addicted will love the scenes of destruction, but I bet it is dull, lifeless, and devoid of any actual substance. No charm whatsoever.